QuarkXpress and Illustrator questions (1 Viewer)

[Monkey]

I've been using illustrator and photoshop for a few years mostly for web stuff and am working on my first proper design project for print. I've never used QuarkXpress before.

I seem to be getting the hang of it ok but can anyone give me a few tips to make sure I don't make any schoolboy errors. I'm particularly worried about about images and colour formats - should I be alright if my images are 300dpi CMYK jpegs or is there more too consider than that?

Also I want to make a logo in Illustrator using a font I downloaded but the font doesn't appear in the list of fonts in illustrator. I did some work experience at a graphic design compnay years ago and they had a program to manage fonts - do I need something like that or is there a simpler way.

thanks

 

[Anthony]

300dpi cmyk jpgs are ok but go with TIFFs, they're better for print.
You'll need to install that font you downloaded. If you're using a Mac just dump it into your fonts folder in the system folder. I don't know how you install a font on a pc.
Keep all your colours in illustrator CMYK too. simple thing you can do just to make sure when you're finished is "select all" then "filter-> colours -> convert to cmyk" it may not do anything but at least you're safe.
Make sure your colours within Quark are CMYK too. By default they are RGB. Just go "Edit -> edit colours" and do it manually.

Finally. When you collect the job (File -> collect for output) Quark creates and files called "report". Hint: create a new document with "automatic text box" checked. Then go "get text" and import the Report that was just created. It will give you a document with loads of pages. Do a search with in alll that text for "RGB". If you get no results you'll know that there are no RGB files in your collect document and it's safe to print.

oh and use "Collect for print" to gether your fonts too.

alternatively you could just save the thing as a PDF. But ask the printer first.

one more thing. After you have collected the job. Open the quark file and resave it as Version 5. The file will be a fraction of the size and probably be more compatible with your printer.

 

[Monkey]

Thanks for those tips.

I'm having a problem with a map drawn in illustrator and saved as a tiff which I've borught into a layout in Xpress. The image looks terrible on screen in XPress but it looks grand in photoshop. Does xpress display photos on screen at a lower quality so it can run quicker or have I gone wrong somehow?

I'm using version 6 on pc.

Also the font I'm using is installed and i can use it with other programs but not illustrator.

 

[Monkey]

P.S. Found out my font problem was just me being stupid.

 

[Anthony]

You are right about the screen preview thing. Eps files can look terrible in QuarkXpress. Version 6 has a "high res preview" option (right click for that one). V6.5 doesn't have that though. Unless they moved it.

 

[Wavioli]

yeah, but itll look fine when you print it out. it's because it doesnt import the files directly, it just links to them.